five of the six cities with the highest murder rates are among those cities with the strictest gun control. if you contrast that to cities that do not have strict gun control -- for example, my hometown of houston, where there are nine murders per 100,000 people, that is less than 1/4 what detroit suffers under. you look at other cities in my home state of texas -- san antonio has 7 murders per 100,000 people. el paso has two murders per 100,000 people. that means detroit, the murder rate is 24 times higher than it is in el paso. i would also point out that the argument that you and chairman were discussing about cities such as chicago not being isolated islands, that there are places elsewhere in the country where people can legally purchase firearms -- none of those cities i discussed, houston, san antonio, el paso, are isolated islands. in the entire state you can purchase firearms. what we see with the murder rates is that the murder rates are consistently lower. my question to you, not your subjective beliefs, but are you aware of any empirical data -- every one of us wants to reduce